Posts archive for October, 2018

When you’re taught how to drive, you’re taught the most important rules such as following road signs — but there’s a good chance that there are other more subtle rules are left out from your knowledge.
These rules aren’t just a caution to help you avoid the law, but are also in place to help you become a safer driver.

Probationary drivers cannot use mobile phones

Since newer drivers tend to get into more frequent and serious car accidents, it’s become illegal for all probationary drivers to use mobile phones for any function at any time while the car isn’t parked.
This includes playing music or using the map. Even when the car is stationary such as at traffic lights or when you’re waiting to turn, mobile phones are prohibited.

You must follow all the rules after a crash

You might think that when there’s a crash, your only responsibility is to make sure that you’re okay. But there are other rules that are in place you need to follow.
The first is that you need to help any injured person involved in the crash. If there’s an injured or killed person in a crash and you don’t provide assistance, you can be fined up to $140,000, be imprisoned for up to 10 years or lose your licence for at least two years.
Another rule that must be followed is that you need to provide your name, address, registration number, and vehicle owner’s name to all those involved in the crash and police if they’re present.
These rules are to ensure first the safety of everyone involved and also to have a satisfactory tracking method to determine what really happened in the crash scene.

You must keep left on any roads over 80km/h

This rule might seem arbitrary at first and even incorrect because plenty of people drive on the right side of multi-lane freeways. But when you’re driving on these roads, you should only use the right lane if you’re overtaking another car, turning right or if traffic is congested.
This means that when you’re just cruising down the highway, it’s important for you to stay on the left lane.

Wearing thongs/flip-flops can get you in trouble

It’s actually not illegal to wear thongs or flip-flops while driving, but you can still be pulled over for not being in proper control of your vehicle. Whether or not this footwear impacts your driving by being in danger of falling off is up to debate, but it might be wise to put on proper footwear regardless of this.
Regardless, if you’re in a crash and they find that you were wearing loose-fitting footwear, it’s not completely unreasonable to assume that perhaps your shoes got loose and stopped you from being able to break.

There’s a difference between parking and stopping

Especially when it comes to the two signs — they have different rules. If there’s a no parking sign, you’re actually allowed to stop for 2 minutes in the area if you remain within 3 metres of the vehicle. This is usually to pick people up or drop passengers off.
However, if there’s a no stopping sign, you’re not allowed to stop including for picking up or dropping off passengers.
It’s a small distinction, but an important one to note.

While there are many tips that people might give you to pass the driving test, we’ve narrowed it down to just the 3 most important tips – the ones we believe you should focus on most. Of course this is assuming that you’ve already practiced driving significantly and are on track to become a safe driver.

Trent On Road Test (TORT)

There’s no better way to practice for a test than to do a test much harder than the actual test. If you’ve ever studied really hard for an exam only to find out that the questions were much easier than the work you did, you would know the feeling of relief knowing you were prepared.
That’s why we have a special program called the Trent On Road Test (TORT), Trent’s very own practice test designed to challenge a learner driver’s skills to the best of their ability.
TORT aims to simulate the test environment as well as possible routes and provides students with as many difficult situations faced in the driving test as possible. During this experience, students will be able to not only be comfortable with driving without assistance but also gain the mental strength to face nerves on test day.
The test is 25–45 minutes long depending on traffic and the route and aims to create an environment as close to test day as possible, providing learner drivers with the confidence and preparation to ace the driving test.
Furthermore, Trent has devised a score sheet based on key competencies required to pass the driving test as well as a process for the trainer to provide detailed feedback on what needs to be improved.

Practice manoeuvres until you’re confident

Arguably the most difficult part of passing the driving test is manoeuvres as while you may have had hours upon hours of practice driving on the road, you would have had to specifically take time out of driving to practice manoeuvres.
Notably, the three manoeuvres you absolutely need to know for the exam are the kerb side park, three-point turn and reverse parallel park. While these are probably known to you, it might not be obvious to spend entire practice sessions dedicated to simply practising manoeuvres.
It’s important that not only do you consciously know how to do these manoeuvres, but you’ve intuitively learnt them for the test so that you can confidently perform them at ease.
When you wake up in the morning, you probably immediately go to brush your teeth. That’s because it’s a habit you’ve learned from practicing for years. You don’t even need to make a conscious effort to do it. You want to practice manoeuvres until you reach this point of confidence.
Remember, practice makes perfect.

Become familiar with the suburb of your testing centre

One tip that might seem arbitrary at first would be to drive around the suburb of your testing centre. To understand why this is important, it’s crucial to see what would happen if you were driving in a suburb you were unfamiliar with.
If you were in an unfamiliar suburb with superb driving skills, you’ll probably be fine. But since you’re a learner driver, you probably want to practice as much as possible so you have the best chance of passing.
Even confident drivers will tell you that driving around an area that they know is significantly easier than driving around an area you don’t know. This is because your subconscious intuitively learns how to drive in an area if you’ve driven there before, and you’ll be performing actions you’ve done before.
It would be as if you’re taking an exam before you’ve actually taken the exam itself — it’s much easier.

While the cost of a driving lesson isn’t a perfect indicator of quality, driving schools who put more resources into the quality of their lessons may increase the cost of their lessons.
You might first look at driving and think it’s relatively easy to learn — but even the easiest skills are better learnt with a deliberate structure. A simple analogy would be trying to get better at marathon running. If you just ran every day without tracking your improvements, you might get better.
But what if there was someone to teach you the proper form, pacing and tracked your strengths and pain points?
This would be the biggest difference between a cheaper driving lesson and a more expensive one. The difference between someone who has a system crafted to improve your driving skills and someone who just sits in the car with you and only helps you with their intuition.

Cheap ($40–$50/hour)

We’ll start with the cheaper driving lessons first. They may range from $40–$50/hr and are usually an independent driving instructor. However, these lessons might typically involve a driving instructor who puts the minimal effort to teach you how to drive.
This would entail an instructor who takes you into a car that hasn’t been optimised for teaching and simply teaching you without ever trying to figure out what you currently know and need to learn.
With anything, whether it’s an iPhone or a cheap phone, you pay for the quality of the product or service. This is the same with driving lessons. These instructors may typically teach you the skills just to pass the driving test, but not to be a better driver in general.

LTrent ($70–$95/hour)

It might seem counterintuitive for us to market ourselves as a more expensive driving school brand, but we feel that we’re justified in doing so. We’ve spent hours and hours on research to understand the best way to teach new students, make sure all our instructors know the process and acquire the best cars for students to drive in.
In the price you pay, you pay for an instructor following a process that we’ve improved over 50 years. You’re paying for a curriculum that is created not just to help you pass the driving test, but to make sure that you’re safe on the road.
This includes a 128-page handbook including 54 instruction topics with everything you need to know, a student record card so you can visually see what you’ve learnt and individually planned lessons.

The Hidden Benefits

What you’re really paying for when you pay for a lesson with LTrent is your time. You’re paying to get a lesson that will save your time. You’ll learn more in one hour with LTrent than one hour with a driving school that hasn’t put as much effort into perfecting the teaching process.
It’s the difference between trying to read a textbook and learning by yourself versus having a teacher who not only knows the material, but knows how to teach you as well.
Our philosophy is producing the best driving lesson possible and our value proposition to you is that you’re going to have a better experience with us than anywhere else. If you don’t believe that you received the best level of service and training, not only will we refund your money for your first lesson but we’ll give you 50% off your next session.Find your driving lesson times or contact us